2025 Prospect Tournament | Dylan Duke 9.10.25

Yeah, I mean obviously it was a great day. Um exciting game. Lightning got the win. So, uh that made it even better. And um yeah, I mean obviously it’s a dream come true scoring a goal in in an NHL game. So, um just a lot of excitement, emotions took over and um you know, thankful for the opportunity. You got a chance to play two games with the Lightning last year. Just how hungry are you? Does that make you now to want to get back up to this uh big team? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, getting a taste of the NHL, um, you know, exceeded all expectations and, um, you know, I’m just hungry to to try and get back up there and and play more games and, you know, try and help Lightning win hockey games at one day. When you hit the 20 mark, especially, you um, yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that’s keeps improving for me is my skating. um you know it’s been a focus point for the p past four or five years um for me to to become you know a better hockey player um is my skating. So been working really hard at that. Um you know I think it’s improved. I think it still has um you know more improvements to come and um you know the better my skating gets I think the more success I’ll be able to have. Can you feel that difference? For sure. Yeah. Uh it’s come a long way but like I said there’s still a lot more. Dylan, you mentioned your skating. Can you take us through uh your offseason training? Who you were working with specifically on that? Uh yeah, I mean I worked a lot with Barb Underh Hill and um Randy. So um you know, we put in a lot of work this summer and um you know, I’m excited to get here to to camp and uh kind of be able to put some of that work to to the test. You mentioned the NHL experience. Obviously, you’ve been to a couple of these prospect tournaments now. Do you feel like maybe have a little responsibility to be a leader a little bit this week for this group? Yeah, for sure. I mean, last year getting to to go to the Prospect tournament for the first time was was exciting. And um you know, now this year have more experience. Uh you know, played a full year pro hockey, so feel like I can help guys out and uh be a bit of a leader out here and um you know, just do whatever I can to make guys feel more comfortable. What kind of advice would you give maybe to a place experiencing this thing for the first time? Um I would say soak it all up. Um take it all in, learn a lot. I mean, our coaches that we have here this week are are great. I mean, Joel Bushard does a great job of um you know, integrating the systems and um you know, but at the end of the day, you got to work as hard as you can and um you know, if work if you work as hard as you can, I think in this organization, um you know, they’ll reward you. What did you learn the most about yourself in your first year as a pro? Uh I think I just learned how dedicated you have to be um to your body to to have success at the pro level. I mean, every day, um, you know, you have to take care of yourself, take care of your body, and, um, or else you’re not going to have success because it’s a long season, a lot more games than college. So, um, just taking care of, uh, you know, eating, sleeping, um, you know, stretching, stuff like that is is huge.

Dylan Duke speaks to the media following our first practice of our 2025 Prospect Tournament.

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